It’s that time of the week, folks: Week in Review (WiR). If you’re new to WiR, it’s the newsletter where TechCrunch sums up what week in tech it was. We get it, you’re a busy person. we all are. So what better way to catch up on what happened than in the form of summary bullet points? We can’t think of one, and trust us, we’ve tried.
If you haven’t already, subscribe to WiR so you never miss a new issue. And take note (if you haven’t already) of upcoming TechCrunch events, including the startup-focused Early Stage in Boston on April 20 and our mega-conference, Disrupt, in San Francisco on September 19-21.
With the call to action out of the way, let’s get to the news!
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tragic murder: Bob Lee, the creator of Cash App and former Square CTO, was killed this week in a fatal stabbing in San Francisco. Roman writes that before joining MobileCoin, Lee worked at Google during the early years of Android, focusing on core library development. He later joined Square, the payments company that later became Block, and was an investor in startups including SpaceX, Clubhouse, Tile and Figma.
Twitter sends doge flying: On Monday, Alex wrote that Twitter added the dogecoin cryptocurrency symbol to a prominent place on Twitter.com, which had the effect of skyrocketing the value of dogecoin. Not coincidentally, Twitter CEO Elon Musk is currently embroiled in a cryptocurrency-related lawsuit, a lawsuit in which Musk’s lawyers called dogecoin a “legitimate cryptocurrency that continues to have a market capitalization of nearly $10 billion.”
Gen Z adopts Fanfix: More and more Gen Z users are jumping on the content creation bandwagon in an effort to earn a living beyond the typical 9 to 5 gigs. However, given the recent drama surrounding major social networking apps, many creators are concerned. lauren reports that this is why an increasing number of Gen Zers are getting on fanfix — a competitor to Patreon that only allows clean content and allows influencers to earn money directly from their followers.
A long-promised treadmill arrives: The Virtuix startup, which has long promised a mass-market omnidirectional treadmill, raising more than $1.1 million on Kickstarter and $35 million from investors to bring it to market, has finally started shipping a home version of its product. Brian reports that the $2,595 Omni One features a few upgrades to Virtuix’s original limited-production model, including a new connecting arm, and comes with a custom Pico Neo 3 headset.
Violations at Western Digital: Data storage giant Western Digital confirmed that hackers recently extracted data from its systems during a “network security incident.” carly writes The California-based company said in a statement on Monday that an unauthorized third party gained access to “several” of its internal systems on March 26. Western Digital has not confirmed the nature of the incident or revealed how it was compromised, but their statement suggests that the incident may be related to Ransomware.
Android apps get delete option: Ivan reports that Google this week announced a new account removal policy for Android apps, which gives apps that offer account creation an easy way to remove them as well. Scheduled to be enforced starting next year, the move follows Apple, which implemented a similar policy last June for apps on the App Store.
An editor-focused Twitter alternative: Maila kind of alternative to Twitter that is rethinking how publishers should interact with social networks, has opened its doors to the public. Sarah reports that the startup, like others in this space, gained traction in the wake of Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, as many began looking for a new place to read and discuss the news or share their own thoughts with their followers. But Post doesn’t want to be just another Twitter clone.
SpaceX Advertising Machine: There is growing excitement about the first orbital flight test of Starship, SpaceX’s ultra-heavy launch system. The hype began to reach a crescendo this week when the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) published an air traffic advisory identifying April 10 as the primary release date. But the FAA has yet to issue the most important launch license for SpaceX, Aria writes: A final regulatory green light that is a non-negotiable step before the company can conduct the test.
Audio
TechCrunch isn’t just a source of well-informed written pieces (how’s that for forced alliteration on a Friday?), it’s also a podcasting machine, don’t you know? In Equity, the team talked about Y Combinator’s demo day, as well as Q1 numbers, deals for the week, and venture activity in Latin America. CT Found The podcast featured The Nudge, a text-based app that helps users make the best plans in their city. Chain Reaction, which was nominated for a Webby Award (vote closes April 20, btw) — interviewed Arianna Simpson, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, about the firm’s focus on cryptocurrency investments. AND Tech Crunch live she took a deep dive into Oma Fertility, a company that raised more than $70 million to radically improve IVF.
TechCrunch+
TC+ subscribers get access to detailed feedback, analysis and surveys, which you know about if you’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, consider signing up. Here are some highlights from this week:
YC Winter 2023 Demo Day Favorites: The TC team rounded up some of their top picks from Y Combinator’s winter 2023 batch, including companies developing comic book software, meat-based plants, and Tesla-derived heat pumps.
Weather Tech Slowdown: Tim writes about the slowdown in climate technology trading, which is occurring as investors anticipate a recession in the coming months. The resilience of climate technology so far has led some to call it the best “recession-proof” investment. Tim explores if that’s still true.
A sad Q1: Alex writes about how the global VC market shrank in the first quarter of 2023, and it would have been even worse if not for some mega deals. The fall in funding means that the current recession in investment in start-ups may not turn around any time soon.
